VALIDATION OF DERIVED GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL ZONES (GWPZ) USING GEO-INFORMATICS AND ACTUAL YIELD FROM WELL POINTS IN PARTS OF UPPER CAUVERY BASIN OF MYSURU AND CHAMARAJANAGARA DISTRICTS, KARNTAKA, INDIA

Groundwater is a most important natural resource of the earth and its demand is rapidly increasing with growing population, agricultural expansion and industrialization. The present study aims to integrate the thematic layers viz., lithology, geomorphology, soil, lineament, land use/land cover, slope, rainfall and other related features to explore the occurrence & movement of groundwater using geo-informatics technique. Integration of various themes is achieved through the development of a models/ assigned weightages which relates and delineates GWPZ and finally to generate a composite map. About 140 bore wells yield data have been collected to quantify the yield from GWPZ map derived from geo-informatics. The final output map is reclassified into four groundwater prospect zones by merging the polygon of same classes using dissolve operation such as Very Good, Good, Moderate and Poor. The final results highlight the high-tech application of Geo-informatics in validating the GWPZ with reference to actual bore well yield data in parts of Upper Cauvery basin in Southern tip of Karnataka State, India.